18.03.2025
Tuberculosis trends in Europe: Rising drug-resistant cases demand urgent action
A team of researchers from the Research Center Borstel in Germany, Imperial College London in the UK, and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in Stockholm, Sweden, has analyzed tuberculosis notification rates across the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) from 2019 to 2023.
Their study, based on ECDC surveillance data, reveals that tuberculosis notifications among individuals of foreign origin in the EU/EEA have returned to pre-COVID-19 levels. While the highest absolute number of tuberculosis cases among foreign-origin individuals comes from the African and Eastern Mediterranean regions, drug resistance remains relatively low in these groups.
However, the analysis highlights a concerning trend: a significant increase in drug-resistant tuberculosis notifications from 2019 to 2023. This rise is primarily driven by cases among individuals from Ukraine who were displaced following the Russian invasion.
“This analysis underscores the urgent need for enhanced surveillance efforts, particularly for drug-resistant tuberculosis, and a strong public health response to address the evolving epidemiology of tuberculosis in the EU/EEA,” says Dr. Anca Vasiliu, one of the study’s lead authors. Dr. Vasiliu is a clinical epidemiologist in the Clinical Infectious Diseases Research Group at Borstel and a postdoctoral associate under the mentorship of Leibniz Chair Prof. Anna Mandalakas, Director of the Global and Immigrant Health Program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, USA.
Dr. Vasiliu will present the findings of this project at the 2025 World Tuberculosis Day webinar of the
ECDC and World Health Organization (WHO) Europe on 19 March 2025, 10:00-12:00 CET.
Webinar:
Those who are interested to join the webinar are invited to register here:
https://eurotb.net/WTBD2025-webinar
Publication:
Vasiliu Anca, Cristea Veronica, Stoycheva Krista, Rosales-Klintz Senia, Lange Christoph, Zenner Dominik, Ködmön Csaba. Shifting tuberculosis dynamics in the EU/ EEA: geographical and drug resistance trends among people of foreign origin, 2019 to 2023. Euro Surveill. 2025;30(11):pii=2500173.
https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2025.30.11.2500173
Contact
Dr. Anca Vasiliu
Div. of Clinical Infectious Diseases
Research Center Borstel, Leibniz Lung Center